To Feast on Smells
by namelessDrifter
Summary: A short one-shot in which Danny realizes that being a ghost means having the uncanny ability to sustain himself on scents and smells alone.


_Just a short one shot based on the idea that Ghosts can sustain themselves on scents and smells. I've been wanting to write for DP for a while now anyway. Constructive criticism welcome, it is 3 am so im just gonna blame any redundancy on that yep. _

It was two weeks after 'The Accident' that Danny noticed _it_. He had a basic grasp on his intangibility, at least in his hands, for the most part. He wasn't dropping every other thing he grabbed, and for that he was grateful, even if he still had trouble holding onto glassware in chemistry. For whatever reason, Danny had noticed that he had a harder time holding onto translucent or clear objects than opaque ones.

But that wasn't what was concerning him today. No, what was odd, what had left him puzzling and curious as he walked to school, was that he wasn't _hungry._ Not really. When he woke up that morning, he was starving, as usual. And like usual, his mother had cooked a hearty breakfast of Fenton Flapjacks and bacon. It was the smell of that delicious food, wafting up the house from the kitchen, that had woken him up. It smelled better than anything he had ever smelled in all his 14 years. Normally, his mother's cooking wasn't that great, even when it wasn't coming to life thanks to ecto-containments. It was good enough, but nothing worth dying over.

That morning though, it had certainly smelled heavenly. He walked downstairs and exchanged greetings with his mother, and took a deep breath, trying to absorb the delicious scents of the breakfast she had placed in front of him before turning back to the stove to prepare breakfast for his father, who wouldn't be up for another half hour, after Danny had left for school. Jazz was already gone, as usual. Probably holed up in the school library. Danny never liked leaving any earlier than he had to.

He breathed in the scent of the fluffy pancakes and bacon as much as possible before actually taking a bite. The smell was just so _addicting_. That was the only word for it. Even the syrup, dripping down the sides and soaking into the breakfast pastry, seemed to smell sweeter and richer than usual. Before this morning he never would have even thought of syrup as _having_ a smell. At least, not one as strong as this. He placed a small bit of pancake in his mouth and realized, it was awful. It was like there was no flavor at all. The scents were _delicious _but the taste was _bland_. It was like eating straight flower instead of syrup saturated pancakes. He quietly pushed the plate away from him, and excused himself from the table, saying that he wasn't that hungry and he should probably get to school.

As Danny left, he resolved to just grab something from the cafeteria. Their food wouldn't be much better, but it would at least calm his aching stomach. It was at that thought that Danny realized his stomach wasn't actually _aching_. In fact, he didn't feel hungry at all. He felt like he would die of starvation when he woke up this morning, but it was almost as if just the smell of breakfast had been enough for him to survive. He was about half way down the block when Danny noticed that he actually felt rather _full_, even though he had only eaten one bite of his breakfast. He felt almost bloated, as though he had eaten too much, and energized.

_Does this have something to do with my developing ghost half?_ He wondered. If it did, it was the weirdest thing. Could ghost actually sustain themselves on smells? Danny wasn't sure. It was times like this that he wished he could find the courage to tell his parents that he was part ghost. Part something they hated, and hunted, and devoted their existence to killing. Or, re-killing, as the case may be. If he told them- and they didn't try to blast him into a million pieces- then maybe they could help him figure this out.

But as it was, Danny was alone. Even Sam and Tucker couldn't help him figure this one out. They just didn't know enough about ghosts. None of them did. And now, Danny was one. Well, part, at any rate. He'd just have to work through this on his own, he supposed.

Around lunch time, Danny noticed the same thing happened as this morning. Everything smelled _amazing, divine, heaven sent._ Even Sam's homemade turfwich, which normally repulsed him, smelt like fresh herbs and grass on a spring day. It was all just so _sustaining_. When the bell rang, signaling lunch's end, Danny didn't even notice that he hadn't touched his cafeteria burger. He had been too wrapped up in the room's delicious aromas. Sam and Tucker had both noticed that Danny seemed a bit spaceyer than usual, but decided not to comment on it. He looked relaxed for the first time in a while, and neither one of them wanted to break him out of his serine state.

Again, Danny realized that he wasn't _hungry_ even though he should be. And while he could feel that cold place he knew to be his ghostly core was strong and content, his human body just felt tired. He still felt _full_ but the lack of human sustenance was not without consequences. Logically he knew he had to eat something, even if he had to force himself to, but he just couldn't find the will power to do so. _Especially_ if everything ended up tasting as horrible as his bite of breakfast this morning, which, deep down inside, Danny knew would be the case.

It wasn't until dinner that a solution had presented itself, thought Danny hadn't realized it at the time. On his walk home, Danny resolved to force himself to eat whatever his mother made tonight, no matter how rancid it tasted or satiating its smell was. It just so happened that tonight, Maddie Fenton was making lasagna, in the _ecto powered oven_. When Danny sat down for dinner that evening, he was almost relieved to note that the dish in front of him glowed slightly green. He had noticed that since his accident, his mother's ecto-infused cooking was slightly easier to stomach, and a bit more satisfying than it was before. When it wasn't reanimated, of course.

Danny was astonished when he realized that the food smelled _good_ and nothing more. It smelled almost _normal_ when compared to the overwhelming scents he had been experiencing and consuming throughout the day. Hesitantly, Danny took a bite of his meal, dreading the bitter flavor he was expecting, but was pleasantly surprised. The food may have smelled only _good_ but the _taste_ was as indescribable as the smell of breakfast from this morning. Never before, even after his 'Accident' had his mom's ecto lasagna tasted this amazing. He ended up having three helpings. Jazz had raised an eyebrow at her brother's sudden increase in appetite for their mother's glowing cooking, but said nothing. Maddie was all too happy to see her son enjoying her meal, and Jack only commented that Danny was a growing boy and needed to eat more anyway. The hunger from not eating all day seemed to hit his human form all at once, and Danny was glad to be able to eat normal food again. Well, as normal as his family's dinner could be.

That evening, as Danny laid in his bed, he supposed that the ability to feast on smells as well as actually _enjoy_ his mother's home cooking was just another part of being half ghost.


End file.
